The new generation of farmhands is armed with lasers and thinks with artificial intelligence.
Instead of a hoe, Carbon Robotics’ four-wheeled weeder patrols crop rows using high-resolution cameras and an on-board computer to identify weeds, then blasts them to a crisp with its eight 150-watt lasers.
The 9,500-pound can work around the clock, zap 100,000 weeds in an hour, and cover 20 acres a day, the company says.
Carbon Robotics has sold out of its 2021 inventory and is taking orders for 2022.
The U.K.’s Small Robot Company also has an automated weeder, but it’s only one of a pair of field robots aiming to give farmers more time off the tractor.
The first squad member is a battery-powered, four-wheeled scanner that can cross 50 acres, or 20 acres, in a day, using GPS to amass data about the location of each plant and each weed.
After collecting as much as six terabytes of data, it trundles back to its shed, plugs itself in to recharge, and sends its data to an artificial intelligence platform that analyzes the health of the plants and suggests steps needed to keep a crop healthy.
That includes weeding, which enlists the team’s other automaton, another battery-driven four-wheeler that takes the scanner’s details, scrutinizes the fields weed by weed, and fries them with 8,000 volts of electricity.
The gadget analyzes six different wavelengths of light to make sure it’s electrocuting harmful invaders while avoiding plants such as veronica, which bees love, or clover that fixes nitrogen in the soil.
This new farm labor force is expensive, but farmers and government agencies are exploring ways to make them affordable, including subsidies and also purchasing through co-ops that could give a dozen or more farmers access to the same machines.
TRENDPOST: The average age of the U.S. farmer was 57.5 in 2017, according to that year’s U.S. Census of Agriculture. The farm force is aging, environmentalists are at war with chemical herbicides, and more consumers are demanding organic foods.
The future of commodity crops belongs increasingly to farming “clean” with automation and artificial intelligence. Entrepreneurs and investors, take note.
